There are about 97,000 centenarians in the country today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and that figure is set to increase tenfold by midcentury as care for the elderly improves and people live longer.

The Denver Post is talking with Coloradans who have reached the century mark to capture their remarkable stories.

Spend a hundred years on the planet, and odds are good that you will hold at least one or two claims to fame, if only in family lore.

But Mildred Jordan might be the only centenarian anywhere with a photograph of a Burmese python draped across her shoulders. The image was taken in Singapore when she was a mere lass of 70. It occupies a place of honor in her living room.

"I always did have a sense of adventure," Mildred said on a recent afternoon in her Lakewood home. "I like to try new things. I think it keeps you young."

She is among the estimated 97,000 Americans who have celebrated a 100th birthday. This has left her somewhat surprised, especially since she took time at age 90 to write a self-published autobiography for her two children and numerous grandchildren — two of them great-greats.

"I never thought I'd get this far," Mildred said with a laugh. She laughs often.

Now she might need to pen an update to account for the past decade.

Quite a journey for a life that began on a Kansas farm in 1911, back when there was no television, few paved roads and, for that matter, only 46 states in the union. (New Mexico and Arizona remained territories until 1912.)

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"My dad was a wheat farmer," said Mildred, who was born to Frank and Mary Stein. "We grew all our own produce, had cows, hogs and chickens. We had everything except flour and sugar. Everything else we grew."

The youngest of four sisters — "They were quite a bit older than me and used to call me 'Finale' " — Mildred learned to ride and drive a buggy at an early age.

"I always felt a bit sorry for my father because he had three girls," Mildred said. "So I dressed up as a tomboy" — a perpetual cowlick helped the look — "and tagged along with him on the farm."

It was a successful farm — their rambling house was the first in the county with electricity — but that didn't keep the family immune from two scourges of the time: influenza and tuberculosis.

Her sister Inez came down with influenza, then developed tuberculosis. She died in 1924.

"She lasted two years, and when she died the country doctor told my father to get to Colorado as fast as he could, because my sister Gladys also had gotten TB," Mildred said.

Mildred Jordan laughs with a Burmese python draped across
her shoulders. The image was taken in Singapore when she
was 70. (Courtesy of Mildred Jordan)

So at age 12, Mildred moved with her family to Denver. The 500-mile trip took a week. They first lived in a house on Newton Street, and her dad, a lifelong farmer, took up the plumbing trade. Two years later Gladys died, leaving only Mildred and her sister Myrtle, who were subsequently regularly dosed with cod liver oil by their mom.

"We slept in the same room as my sister, but we survived," Mildred said. "The changes in the medical field have been wonderful." She noted that the familiarity with death at a young age is less common than it once was.

Mildred graduated from Barnum School in the eighth grade — the neighborhood had been developed as an investment by showman P.T. Barnum — and enrolled at West High School.

"That was a great," she recalled. "It was a brand-new school and we were the first graduating class."

Mildred took business classes, excelling at them. Before graduation she was already offered a typing job with the American Association of Clinical Pathologists.

Then she met Julian Jordan. He was five years older than her and had been supporting his mother and siblings since he was 12, after his father left.

"We were introduced by a co-worker of mine and they had the two of us over for dinner," Mildred said. "I guess I make a pretty good impression because he took me home and asked me for a date.

"Oh, he was beautiful," she said. "The kindest person you ever met."

They married in 1934, and went to the Chicago World's Fair for their honeymoon.

"It was wonderful," Mildred said. "We were overwhelmed. walked everywhere, saw everything, and at the end of the day would just come back to the hotel and practically collapse, because our feet hurt so much."

It wasn't too long before the couple bought a printing shop — Julian was a trained linotype operator. It was called the Hustler Printing Co. and sat on Santa Fe Drive. Mildred kept the books.

They started a family: a daughter, Mary, and son, Richard, living in a house on South Gilpin Street.

Working in the print shop made for a level of togetherness rare for couples who aren't running a mom-and-pop business. You wind up learning a lot of nuances about your spouse.

"Now, my husband never swore," Mildred said. "He always said it was a sign of poor vocabulary. One day I came to work late and my son took me aside and said, 'Mom, you better tread gently. Pops has already said "darn" three times.'"

The print shop led to the couple running the West Side Hustler and Washington Park Press, free community newspapers underwritten by ads she sold. She joined the Colorado Press Women, serving a stint as president, and met Lady Bird Johnson in 1964, soon after Lyndon Johnson became president.

The couple bought a summer home in Alice, an old log house they fixed up and dubbed the "Alice in Wonderland Cabin."

"We bought it from an acquaintance who had used it as a drinking retreat, but it didn't work out for him," Mildred said. "It's at 10,000 feet and he'd get a little alcohol into him and just pass out."

The couple picked it up for back taxes, sledding in winter and taking to the ridges come summer. "We hiked all over the place," Mildred said. "It's beautiful. Good fishing, too."

Travel became a preoccupation, prompting cross-country trips, sojourns in Europe, Mexico and a journey through Asia that resulted in that python photo.

"We'd be coming home from a trip and would look at each other and say, 'Where next?' " Mildred said. "I had to try everything. I always liked trying something new. "I love people," she said. "I always got along well with them."

Julian died in 1995 and she now lives in a retirement community, although she is still a member of Washington Park United Methodist Church. She counts her faith on getting her through a bout with breast cancer in 1989.

"I really believe that," she said.

There seems to be a perpetual smile on Mildred's face. It has been a rich life, but at 100 you look around and find few contemporaries. She's outlasted nearly everyone from her youth.

"I'm a person who doesn't let things get me down," she said. "I always look for the happy moment."

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